So now we have a chance to do this in 2022 after the Olympics in Oslo on Bislett stadium! 100 years anniversary for skating at Bislett and Norway at top of the world with skating again! It was an amazing weekend and hope we can do it! Thanks @CBvNL for showing us the winterway! https://t.co/wOU2jP21W4

A couple of days after the end of the Allround world championships that were held in Amsterdam, rumors about having another outdoor World championships in an open stadium have emerged.

By Jackob Savard

Photo byIsle van der Meer et Unknown / Oslo Museum

After the spectacular Allround world championships that were held in the legendary Amsterdam olympic stadium, Norwegians have come up with the idea of organising a World championship at the Bislett Stadium in Oslo in 2022. Holding the event in 2022 would align with the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of skating at the Bislett Stadium.

World and European championships have already been raced at the Bislett Stadium but there hasn’t been one since the 90’s. The stadium is now used for track and field competitions and football games. The three times world champion and four times Olympic champion Johann Olav Klass was one of the first to make the suggestion.

So now we have a chance to do this in 2022 after the Olympics in Oslo on Bislett stadium! 100 years anniversary for skating at Bislett and Norway at top of the world with skating again! It was an amazing weekend and hope we can do it! Thanks @CBvNL for showing us the winterway! https://t.co/wOU2jP21W4

At 33 years old, Charles Hamelin became the oldest overall short track speed skating champion in the history of the sport. Hamelin, who announced last week that he was backing out of the retirement plans he had announced at the beginning of the season, just added to his legendary career with this title. A title that puts an end to any arguments from doubters who thought it was time for him to let go and retire. "I was prepared for this kind of results, but to actually accomplish it is like a dream come true. I was missing only two titles in my career, the 1000m gold medal at the Olympics and the overall world champion title and I can’t find the words to express how it feels to accomplish one of those at home, in Montreal. I feel like I still can bring something to short track.” It would be hard to argue with Hamelin at the moment.

Korea’s Choi Min Jeong in a class of her own

At only 19 years old, Choi Min Jeong wins her third world champion overall title. After being crowned for the first time in Moscow in 2015 and a second time in Seoul in 2016, victories on 1500m, 500m and 3000m in Montreal were enough to finish ahead of her teammate Shim Suk Hee, who was the last world champion crowned in Montreal in 2014. “Honestly, this victory was unexpected because I got injured at the Olympic games and after the Olympics I had to recover so I couldn’t prepare for this weekend so I’m very happy.”

Results from the crowd favourites

Other than the historical performance of Charles Hamelin, his teammate Samuel Girard finished 10th overall while Pascal Dion ended the competition 22nd out of 53 skaters. On the women’s side, bronze medalist on 1500m Kim Boutin finished 7th overall while Jamie Macdonald and Marianne St-Gelais finished respectively 9th and 19th

Surprising outcome for Liu Shaolin Sandor

After two days of competition that looked like a roller coaster ride, Liu Shaolin Sandor finished second overall. “It was a massive surprise for me. I didn’t imagine I could be on the overall podium. The 3000m is not really my distance but everything went the way that was best for me. When I looked up and I saw that I had 45 points and the Korean had 44 I thought, oh my God this is short track, anything can happen. I skated in only one A final before the 3000m. This is magic. It’s such a good thing to come back to a country that love our sport so much. Racing in Montreal is great. Everyone is cheering and not just for Canadian skaters. They are cheering for everyone. It’s such a great feeling.”

A lot of action on the relay events

On the women’s side, Korea who had three of the top five skaters of the overall ranking on these 2018 World championships were just too strong during the 3000m relay and were crowned champions at the end of the 27 laps event. After fighting with Canada, the Netherlands were able to claim silver while Canada got the bronze. Dutch skater Yara van Kerkhof, who was hoping for better individual results, was quite pleased by the outcome of this relay final. As for the Canadian women and their fans gathered at the Maurice-Richard arena, the bronze medal was an emotional one as they were witnessing the last laps of Marianne St-Gelais’s career.

On the men’s side, Korea wins gold finishing ahead of Canada and Japan. The Netherlands who had won the title last season, finished fourth. Samuel Girard, Charles Hamelin, Charle Cournoyer and Pascal Dion were really proud of their silver medal. They felt like they perfectly executed their plan. They were beaten by a team who skated a flawless race and was just stronger than them today.

This puts an end to the 2017-18 short track speed skating season at the international level but we will keep offering you short track content up until next season so stay tuned!

The distances on the program were 500m (2), 1500m, team sprint and mass start.

500m

On the ladies’ side of the competition, Angelina Golikova, Vanessa Herzog and Olga Fatkulina stepped on the podium. Herzog’s second place today was enough to win the World cup overall classification on the distance.

It was a Dutch domination in the men’s race as Jan Smeekens, Dai Dai Ntab and Hein Otterspeer finished first, second and third. Smeekens completed his race with a time of 34.83. Even if Havard Lorentzen didn’t have awesome results this weekend, he remained at the top of the 500m ranking and is the 2017-2018 500m World cup champion.

1500m

The new ladies’ allround world champion, Miho Takagi, won the 1500m event finishing ahead of Marrit Leenstra and Lotte Van Beek. With this race, Takagi confirms her overall World cup classification victory on 1500m.

Sverre Lunde Pedersen, who was almost crowned world allround champion last week, won the last 1500m race of the season. Denis Yuskov from Russia and the young Norwegian Allan Dahl Johansson completed the podium. Denis Yuskov is the overall World cup champion on the distance.

Team sprint

There was only three teams in the men’s and ladies’ team sprint. Russia won in the ladies’ competition and the Norwegian won in the men’s race.

Mass start

The mass start was raced at a pretty slow pace on the ladies' side but the intermediate sprint created some action. Ayano Sato from Japan was the fastest in the sprint and finished in front of Ivanie Blondin from Canada and Francesca Lollobrigida from Italy.

Only height skaters were on the line to skate the last mass start of the season. We still had a good show with Simon Schouten and Shota Nakamura’s breakaway. Schouten was finaly the fastest and claimed the victory. Nakamura finished second as Danila Smerikov from Russia finished third. Bart Swings from Belgium wins the overall mass start World cup classification.

Two new grand World cup champions were crowned

Havard Lorentzen and Miho Takagi were crowned grand world cup champions as they collected the most points in the cumulative of every distances this season. Lorentzen end his great season with 734 World cup points. Takagi is on top of the World cup classification with 1040 points and is almost 300 points in front of her closest rival.All the results including the grand world champion classification are available HERE.

The speed skating season has now ended. What was your favorite moment of the season?

17 mars 2018

Light,
camera action. The blockbuster event of the 2017-2018 short track season in Canada started with a bang
today at the Maurice-Richard arena as Kim Boutin and Charles Hamelin pleased the home crowd with a podium each.

The competition started with the action
on 1500m. On the women's side, Suzanne Schulting tried to skate from
the back and move up with two and a half laps left but it was too
late to qualify for the A final. B final for Schulting is
still a good result considering she's been sick all week. Met at the end of the day, Schulting said she felt better today: "I'm pretty happy with how I skated today. Of course, it's not the best I can do but it could have been worse. I wanted to skate in the A final but the legs were just not good enough today." In Shulting's race, Choi Min Jeong and Sofia Prosvirnova got their tickets for the
A final. In the second semifinal, local star Kim Boutin and Korea's
Kim Alang qualified for the main final while the race was much too fast for young American
skater Maame Biney. In the third and last semi, Shim Suk Hee was able
to wait and move up in the second part of the race finishing first ahead of Tifany Huot Marchand
from France. In the main event, Kim Boutin skated a great race, but
it is always difficult to fight against three Korean skaters. Choi
Min Jeong is your 2018 world champion on the distance finishing ahead
of Shim Suk Hee and Kim Boutin.

On the men's side, the competition was
epic. The first race that saw Liu Shaolin Sandor and Denis Nikisha
advance to the A final finished with falls by Liu Shaoang and
Thibault Fauconnet in what looked like a Mario Kart race. The second
semifinal was actually the best 1500m race that I've been able to
witness in person. Charles Hamelin and Ren Ziwei battled for many
laps until Semen Elistratov was able to make his move to finish in
second place behind Charles Hamelin who is totally in his zone right
now. In the third semi, Samuel Girard and Lim Hyo Jun made their way
to the main final. In the main event, Hamelin showed that he's
probably the youngest 33 years old elite athlete right now becoming world
champion on 1500m finishing ahead of olympic champion on the distance
Korea's Lim Hyo Jun and bronze medalist in Pyeongchang Semen
Elistratov.

500MAs always the competition on 500m was highly exciting. On the women's side, Canada had two skaters in the main final as Kim Boutin and Jamie Macdonald had qualified after hard battles in the semis. They had to face Korea's Choi Min Jeong, Poland's Natalia Maliszewska and China's Qu Chunyu. Boutin was victim of a fall in the main event and Jamie Macdonald finished in fourth. Choi Min Jeong won her second world champion title of the day. Maliszewska finished second while Qu finished third.

On the men's side, Charles Hamelin couldn't qualify for the A final, but gathered important points in the overall ranking by winning the B final. The main event was won by Korea's Hwang Dae Heon, with Ren Ziwei finishing second and Semen Elistratov third. Charles Hamelin is in first place on the overal ranking after two events. "I'll be a target tomorrow on 1000m. I will need to be wiser than the other skaters, climb all the way to the final and do the kind of race that I'm capable of doing."

RELAYOn the relay semifinals, Canada, Korea, Italy and the Netherlands will be battling it out tomorrow on the women's final while Canada, Korea, the Netherlands and Japan will fight on the men's event.